


Relentless

by Elivra



Series: Tender Nothings [8]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 18:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14795283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elivra/pseuds/Elivra
Summary: Erwin Smith has lost more than just an arm, and Levi helps him cope. Really short fic, can't give anything else away! Rated for swearing, implications of (canon-compliant) violence. Manga spoilers (ish)This story can be read individually or as ordered chronologically inTender Nothings.





	Relentless

**Author's Note:**

> What's that? More Eruri angst, you say? Coming right up! 
> 
> I had this written a while ago, but had to wait to post it in my series of canon Eruri moments because it had to be chronological. I've edited it in a hurry before posting it, so do let me know if you find any errors.
> 
> Happy reading! (ish)

The brats are still settling in at the cabin, so Levi accompanies Hange to HQ for a day. He doesn't really need to, but he insists he wants to give his report in person. Hange is the only one who usually questions him in any case, and Hange is preoccupied.

He has to search for him. In turn he checks his office, the mess hall, the medical wing, even the communal washrooms. Finally, there is only one place left and after taking a little detour into his own room to gear up, Levi makes his way there, feeling something close to anger.

It is a cloudy day, and the sun is a meagre white smear in the sky. He walks past training dummies and fixed harnesses, past the running track and the sparring pit. He goes to the very edge of the woods bordering the training grounds, where an anxious soldier stands with extra blades, gas canisters, and a medical kit. Levi dismisses him immediately.

Barely five minutes later, he sees him: flying erratically, listing heavily to his left. His landing is imprecise and he stumbles and falls to his knees, his back to Levi.

Anger flares within him again; at least, Levi _thinks_ it's anger.

“Your balance is off,” he barks and Erwin's back stiffens.

“Ah, Levi,” Erwin says, still on his knees, still facing away. “You're here.”

“Obviously.” Levi strides to his side and offers him his hand. Erwin very pointedly ignores it and rises slowly.

“How goes your little project?” Erwin still isn't looking at him, focusing instead on the trigger in his hand, as though it is his gear that is malfunctioning.

“How's your arm?” Levi asks instead.

“How's your leg?” Erwin counters, finally looking at him.

“Tch.” Levi huffs and is forced to answer. “I'm not limping any more.”

Erwin looks genuinely pleased. “I'm glad.”

_Asshole._

Levi looks up at the trees. They are quite tall, not in the range of the giant forest where they nearly captured the Leonhardt girl, but tall enough.

“You should be training with the fixed harnesses.” Levi grumbles.

“I already did,” Erwin shrugs. “Now, can you wait? I'd like to finish training before getting to-”

“Shut up.” Levi returns to the pile of supplies and is gratified to find a spare roll of bandages. When he turns back to Erwin, his thick eyebrows are slanted in a frown.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think, dumbass?” Levi folds and twirls the bandage around his right arm. “Training with you.”

“You don't have to-”

“Shut up,” Levi snaps again. “And help me with this.”

Erwin hesitates for a moment, then approaches him. “What do you need?”

Levi has folded his arm behind his back. “Help me tighten this knot.”

Between the two of them, they manage to tie Levi's arm tightly behind his back. Levi tries tugging it out of the bind, finds it too loose, and asks for it to be tighter.

“You don't have to do this,” Erwin murmurs, holding down the knot while Levi pulls it tight.

Levi simply shrugs his hand off his shoulder, and unholsters his left trigger. “Watch me,” he mutters and fires the wire-

-and immediately crashes into a tree branch. Swearing, he pulls himself up on the branch. He has done something like this before, when he had injured his wrist during his Underground days, but it has been years, too many years.

“That was impressive,” Erwin calls out from the ground.

“Fuck you,” Levi responds and fires again. This time, he manages to swing unsteadily onto two consecutive branches. He pauses to catch his breath for just a second before he fires again. Slowly, he regains control of his actions, until he is able to perform a complete circle around Erwin, who stands still on the ground, watching him. Levi's focus is intense, but his moves are straightforward, nothing elaborate, no spins, no sudden swerves. If there was a Titan in his path he'd be dead.

But when Levi lands in front of him, Erwin says softly, “You… are incredible.”

Levi glares at him. “I wasn't trying to show off.”

“I know.”

“I'm trying to help.”

“I know, Levi.”

They stare at each other for a long, heavy moment. Levi takes a deep breath and speaks his mind. “You should stop. You should recuse yourself from Expeditions. You can't-”

“So.” Erwin cuts in briskly, turning away to look at the trees. “What advice do you have for me?”

Levi grits his teeth but when Erwin's face is fixed in that false mask, he has to relent. “You need to lean into your right.”

“My _right_ side?”

“You're imbalanced, your centre of gravity has shifted. You will be naturally inclined to favour your left but you need to try and avoid that. Balance it out.”

“That's… actually difficult.”

“No shit. You need to retrain your reflexes. Build new ones.”

Erwin nods. “Understood.”

Levi pauses infinitesimally, but Erwin still looks determined. With a small sigh, he says, “Let's start small.”

*

Erwin is relentless. Levi has known this from the very beginning. He was relentless in his chase of Levi in the Underground, in petitioning for funds for the Corps, he is relentless in his fight against enemies that grow more dangerous, in his pursuit of the truth that is buried in a ruined basement in an abandoned walled town. He is relentless now, firing his sole trigger again and again, getting up every time he falls down again, and again, and again.

A lesser man would have stopped hours ago. A lesser man would still be in bed, waiting for his wounded stump of an arm to heal. But Erwin Smith is a man above the rest, a man who with his actions ridicules Levi's hard-earned title. _Humanity's strongest_ , ha. If only they knew. If only they fucking _knew_.

“Let's take a break,” Levi tries, when the sun is already close to the horizon, soon to slip down below it.

“I almost have it,” Erwin mutters, gripping the trigger tighter.

“Yeah. Take a break and we'll get back to it-”

“No.”

Levi stares at him. “What?”

Erwin looks at him calmly, his face devoid of all expression, his eyes hollow. But he is breathing faster and Levi can very well see the shudder that passes through his remaining hand as he grips the trigger tighter still.

“I'd like to try again,” Erwin says evenly.

Levi doesn't even notice the couple steps he takes to stand in front of him. “Enough.”

“Levi-”

“I said, _enough_.” He grabs the trigger but Erwin still holds onto it, his expression turning grim.

“I need to train, Levi.” His voice is almost a growl, the words almost a command.

“I'm not stopping you.”

Erwin gives him a pointed look and Levi narrows his eyes. “I'm not, you idiot. I said, take a break. Drink some water. Eat a little. Even cripples need to take shits.”

Erwin looks away, and slowly, lets go of the trigger. Levi replaces it in his holster and as he does so, he can feel the steady beat of his heart, and after everything that has happened since morning, the strength of it calms Levi. His hand is still tingling as Erwin backs into a fallen tree trunk and sinks onto it wearily.

But then Erwin’s next words are like a rude slap in the face. “Mike is dead.”

Levi takes an unconscious step back, feeling cold right down to his bones. “I know.”

He knows, he knows everything. He knows they looked for him in the week they took to clear Wall Rose of any stray Titans. He has read the reports of the cadets that last saw him, riding away to slow down a group of Titans so he could buy time for them to raise the alarm. He has talked to the soldiers that found no body, that found instead some stray stains in the grass, some broken blades, the decaying corpse of Mike’s horse.

Levi knows because he was there when they told Erwin. He had taken the news calmly then, more calmly than he had when he found out about Ragako’s former inhabitants.

But now, Erwin's face is anything but calm. “I still have to remind myself sometimes,” he says softly. “Still have to force the words down to believe them. To believe that he truly is gone.”

Levi is struck dumb. He doesn't know what to say. What _can_ he say? Death is relentless, more so than the seasons, than the cruelty of the Titans, more relentless than Erwin could ever be. But they both already know this. There is no point in saying it out loud.

The silence grows and stretches, like a cold, heavy blanket that slowly drapes on them, weighing them down. Beyond them, the sun sinks below the horizon and dusk starts settling in.

“I have been meaning to ask you something for a long time,” Erwin murmurs finally, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“What is it?” Levi rasps.

“Why did you stay?” Erwin finally looks up at him, and his eyes, his _goddamn eyes_. “After that first Expedition?”

Levi blinks, his heart jolts. He tries hard not to think of that first Expedition. More often than not, he fails. More often than not, he remembers everything.

“It was my only choice,” he manages to say.

There is a long pause before Erwin replies. “Yes. I suppose… your surface citizenship-”

“That's not what I meant.”

Erwin only looks at him. Levi looks away. “I chose to live.” When Erwin still says nothing, he continues, “I chose the Survey Corps because I wanted to _live_. The way you do.”

Erwin lets out a strangled chuckle. “You wanted _my_ way of life.”

“You-” Levi stops, then tries again. “You see the sky, Erwin. I wanted to see what you saw.”

Erwin’s thick eyebrows contort into a grimace. “Then did you get to see it?” He asks in a thick voice.

Levi makes sure his eyes are latched onto his when he speaks, and almost absently, he reaches down and brushes away strands of his blond fringe off his sweaty forehead. “I do. Everyday.”

Erwin sighs and closes his eyes. The crickets have started to hum in the trees, visibility too low now to train.

But neither of them says anything more. The heavy blanket seems to have suddenly disappeared. Quietly, they unhook their gears, pack up the supplies, and set off to the main building, side by side, occasionally glancing up at the stars.

“I have to head back,” Levi says eventually.

“Alright.”

“My report is on your desk.”

“Thank you.”

They stop at the one of the castle's many side entrances, with no one around to observe them. “Thank you, Levi,” Erwin murmurs again.

“Get some rest,” Levi responds. “I'll see you soon.”

Erwin places his hand on Levi's shoulder and Levi grabs it. They stand, hand in hand, frozen still and silent for a long time, while the darkness deepens. Then, Levi turns around and walks away, making sure to not turn around.

After all, he'll see him again, soon.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Yeah, still pissed that Mike did not get the mourning he deserved. :( Erwin and Mike had been friends since their cadet days, and other than Levi, Mike was the person Erwin trusted most. 
> 
> So yes, if anything, I would have had Erwin grieve more, but I think Isayama's whole point was that they don't have the *time* to grieve in peace. I mean, Levi thinks he'll see him soon, right? WRONG, Erwin is arrested before Levi can see him again. Haha *sobs*
> 
> Anyhow, please let me know what you think of it! Too little angst? Too much? Too OOC? Let me know!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
